Birthday Extravaganza

I should point out that our area of France hasn’t seen cases of Covid for quite awhile, according to a doctor friend. That’s why we feel fairly free to spend time together. We still limit gatherings and try to meet outside. 

Birthday hats on the beach

 If I were in the States for my birthday, back in my old life, I probably would have gone to work for the day. My work friends on Facebook might have said "Happy birthday." Perhaps my husband would have come home early from work and we would have walked to a nearby restaurant for a drink and delicious cheesy biscuits before going home to celebrate with my adult children. That would have been the hoopla surrounding my birthday. Nothing to complain about, really. 

But now, I live in France and I control my work schedule. I took the entire day off work. 

I got up and went for a run. 

Post run pic for my running friends

I walked to the bakery and bought too many pastries so we could have brunch with Jules and Jack at our place. 

Just a representative sample

In the afternoon, I went hiking with Jo and Tina at the green labyrinth in Nebias. 

You can see where it gets its name

Everything covered with moss feels mystical.

I'd been there before, but only hiked one section. This time, through a bit of exploring, I learned there are two other sections and we ended up hiking for about three hours. 

At one point, we sat on giant rocks and drank hot chocolate with amaretto, thanks to Jo. 

We also had a brief conversation with a Frenchman who was cutting pine branches in the forest. He started making a lot of excuses for his actions and then decided he was a bit of a shaman who could heal any of our ails. 

He instructed both Tina and Jo to swing their arms back and forth, to bend down and touch their toes, to count to 20 in French while he walked in a circle. He claimed to heal stiffness that they didn’t have. 

Strange Frenchman whose directions apparently needed to be followed.

The green labyrinth is supposed to be a place of mystery so we named the man “the gnome” and accepted it as part of the magic of the labyrinth. 

When we returned home, we had some blanquette (a sparkling wine made in the region) and millefeuille. Lou and Steve came by with a bottle of wine as a gift and joined us for a drink. Everyone left to get home before curfew, just as our dinner guests arrived. 

Sue and Steve spent the night so they didn’t have to worry about getting home before the 6 pm curfew. Derrick and Kris joined us with their dogs. They’re allowed to walk their dogs after curfew so can stay late, closer to a realistic dinner time.

I got to speak with all of my kids and my parents, so that helped make the day special, too. 

But my birthday didn’t end that day. The next day we joined  Theresa and Jim and traveled to l’aqueduc d’Ansignan, an old Roman aqueduct. 

A bat on the ceiling, I think

Amazing 3rd century construction

Theresa and Jim had made some paper boats to race in the aqueduct but there was no water in it. So we had to turn to the river Agly. 

Some of the paper boats stayed afloat longer than others

After our exploits, we drove through Estagel, stopping at the kebab shop for take-away gyros. We sat down on the sidewalk eating, enjoying a meal out the only way we have been able to since October 29, 2020. 

Then we headed to the beach. The temperature dropped close to the Mediterranean and the wind picked up. 

We visited a historic settlement of fishermen huts along the lake across the road from the Med. The huts were made of reeds, but the wind was brutal so we didn't pause long.

Then we crossed the street and watched the kite surfers jump and flip the windy waves. 

Kite surfing

We found a sheltered place in Canet-en-Roussillon and enjoyed some pastries that Jim and Theresa had brought along, wearing birthday hats and blowing streamers. 

And my birthday extravaganza came to an end. I can't imagine trying to top it next year. 

Compare and Contrast

On Facebook, a memory popped up showing a set of pictures from 4 years ago. The temperature was 14 degrees Fahrenheit (-10 Celsius), we had snow and our house’s big front window shown with Christmas lights. 

I had been scrolling through Facebook while I lay in bed in the dark with the shutters closed. I hadn't been walking or running lately after another knee injury. So I got out of bed in France and determined to take a walk and some pictures to contrast life then and now. 

Today

Baa bass black sheep

I chose a flat path that I could walk and as I rounded a corner, I heard the tinkling bells of sheep and a baa. I knew where they lived and walked around to the backyard to see two of them standing on an old concrete well. 

That’s something I never saw on my runs in Ohio.

Mountains and a river

I continued my walk and the faint pinks of sunrise still shone over the mountains. 

A closer look at that river, the Aude. 

The river continues to rush to its destination in spite of COVID-19 and confinement and curfews. 

The path not taken

This path looks so welcoming but it leads up a mountain and the path is unsteady with lots of stones, not good for my knee, so I resisted. 

Berries

The orange and yellow berries reminded me of a photo I took 4 years ago, but the berries in Ohio were covered with snow. 

4 years ago

Here's my montage from four years ago. 

The pictures from my Ohio life made me feel homesick.

My life in France is very much changed from that Ohio life. 

But the sun still decorates the sky every morning. And even though the air feels a bit cold when I go out in the morning, the temperature is in the mid-40s Fahrenheit, about 8 Celcius, which is a far cry from 14 (-10). So I may long for those days, but I probably wouldn't get out of bed and go for a run like I did on that morning four years ago. 

In every new life, you gain some things and lose some things. My goal is to be able to see the beauty of whatever life I'm in. 

Bike and Wine Tour

Today we set off in the dark morning with just a sliver of moon lighting the way, crossing the mountains and coming down again into the Corbières valley, a region famous for wine making in this part of France. 

It was a bike ride and wine tasting. 

The short ride was 76 kilometers, about 47 miles, with 4 wine tastings and lunch included.

Our friend Steve is  practically a professional biker and his wife Lou also rides well on her nice bike. 

Earl and I have heavier bikes called hybrids. We like them but felt the drag of them today. 

Our first stop, about 8 miles in looked like a visiting circus with all the multi-colored bicycle gear. 

The wine looked nice and I had flashbacks to the Beaujolais Nouveau we would snap up at Trader Joe’s in November but the wine did not live up to my expectations. 

We hopped on our bikes for 25 more kilometers

 to Lagrasse where we stopped for a snack, ham and butter on baguettes, soft drinks or wine.

Back on the bikes to Terre d’expressions for more wine. This one was called Premeur, still a new wine. 

Our last gasp of a ride before arriving for lunch, 12 kilometers. 

We’d ridden 61 kilometers, when we sat down for lunch, noodles with pork, meatballs and sausages. 

Plus more wine. 


The wine tasted better each time, but maybe that just came from tiredness. 

We had cheese and dessert at the end. 

All of this for 12 euros and a little sweat equity. 

It was a beautiful day and we both needed a break from working — Earl on the house and me teaching. 

Now we’re sitting in the sun while Lou and Steve cycle the 15 kilometers back to the car. They’ll pick us up and we only feel slightly decadent choosing not to ride the final 15 k.

Dreaming of France -- Fear and Jubilation

Please join this weekly meme. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to An Accidental Blog. Share with the rest of us your passion for France. Did you read a good book set in France? See a movie? Take a photo in France? Have an adventure? Eat a fabulous meal or even just a pastry? Or if you're in France now, go ahead and lord it over the rest of us. We can take it.

Is it possible to be over-the-moon excited about something and petrified at the same time?
That's how I'm feeling these days.
Our plans to sell the house and move to France are progressing. Downstairs right now, some men are updating the bathroom and installing a new floor in the main room.
We are slowly getting rid of furniture, a bookshelf here, a spare refrigerator there, trips to Goodwill each week with books and clothes and kids' items that we no longer need. School papers, pictures, and books that we can't bear to part with are tucked into plastic bins. We'll probably go through them again and again, slowly releasing items that we can't possibly move overseas.
The purging of belongings feels marvelous, freeing.
The living room is painted and free of clutter. I could definitely feel secure showing the living room to potential buyers, but there's much more work to do.
So where's the fear?
Every time I think about that day when we climb onto the plane leaving our three children behind, my heart clutches. Can I really do that? Say goodbye knowing that I won't see them for six months, a year?
Of course, when they went to college, Grace in New York, Spencer in Florida, I survived without seeing them for three months. We managed to stay in contact.
Maybe it would be easier if they had moved away. Then the twinge of guilt wouldn't eat at me.
I guess I'm always the one who has left. After grad school, I packed up and moved to Florida, 1200 miles from my parents. We didn't have cell phones so once-a-week phone calls and letters had to fill the daily gap of contact.
My two oldest children encourage us to go. My youngest, 21 now, has accused us of abandoning him, but that has been a few months so his feelings may have changed. He has his own apartment, but I guess the idea that we wouldn't be here as a safety net seems scary to him. To me, too.
I am sad to sell this house and leave our community. It's like a 1950s enclave, except liberal. It has an incredibly low crime rate and excellent schools. We walk to the library and an array of coffee shops and restaurants. An Irish bar blares out music on St. Patrick's Day and the latest California-style bar celebrates Cinco de Mayo. Pretty much everything we need is within walking distance, including Earl's job, 3 miles away and my job, 4 miles away. We can bike into downtown Columbus, or walk when we have an extra hour.
But I've dreamed of living in France.

We've visited over and over again. In May, I'll take my 12th trip to France.
And Earl's dreams are filled with retirement plans. He has worked as a reporter for 40 years. It's a grueling business that eats up his days -- sometimes 12-hour days, and causes his eyes to pop open in the middle of the night, worried about making a mistake in a story.
He allowed me to stay home with the kids and I only worked part-time jobs while he carried the brunt of the financial burden. I owe him this. I need to support him in his retirement and carry the financial load for a bit.
Once he retires, we couldn't afford to stay here in this house, plus to pay for insurance and student loans and other expenses. So a move is in our future.
Setting off on an adventure is challenging. In every Disney movie, the main character dreams of what could be out there and something propels her.
I guess it's time to be my own Disney hero, no matter my fears.

Dreaming of France -- Preteens in France

Thank you for joining this weekly meme. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to An Accidental Blog. Share with the rest of us your passion for France. Did you read a good book set in France? See a movie? Take a photo in France? Have an adventure? Eat a fabulous meal or even just a pastry? Or if you're in France now, go ahead and lord it over the rest of us. We can take it.

Since Grace is in Europe this week, I thought I'd revisit a time when my boys were in France.
Here is Spencer, age 12, on the Eiffel Tower with Paris at his back.

A fashionable 12-year-old in 2007. Note the soccer jacket and the puka shell necklace, plus the still wet hair.  

That was the first time he'd gone up the Eiffel Tower. When we took the kids 

over at ages 2, 4, and 6, only Tucker went to the top of the tower with me. 

And here's Tucker as a 10-year-old wearing a beret that we bought at a souvenir shop. We still have that beret!

Hope you're thinking about good memories of France today, too. 

Thanks so much for playing along with Dreaming of France today. Please leave your name and blog address in Mr. Linky below, and leave a comment letting me know what  you think about my love affair with France, or your own passion for the country and its people and cultures. Also consider visiting the blogs of others who play along so we can all share the love.

Dreaming of France -- First Time

Thank you for joining this weekly meme. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to An Accidental Blog. Share with the rest of us your passion for France. Did you read a good book set in France? See a movie? Take a photo in France? Have an adventure? Eat a fabulous meal or even just a pastry? Or if you're in France now, go ahead and lord it over the rest of us. We can take it.

Although I can't always be in France, it's a joy for me when someone I love discovers France.
My niece Caroline just finished her sophomore year in college. She took an internship in Germany this summer and has been there for nearly a month. She'd never traveled overseas before and this weekend she visited Paris.

I've never visited the catacombs, but that is exactly where Caroline headed. She's studying forensics in college, so it makes sense that she would want to see all the bones. 

She sent her mother a detailed itinerary of all the things they had seen and visited in Paris, but I didn't need to know the details, I only needed to see the expression on her face to know that she'd fallen in love.
Here's her departing picture from on top of the Arc de Triomphe.

And she wrote, "Merci, Paris, merci." 

I think she'll be back. 

Thanks so much for playing along with Dreaming of France. I really appreciate your participation and I hope you'll leave a comment plus visit each other's blogs.

My Book

Well, my book is still chugging along. Probably not keeping J.K. Rowling awake at night worried about the competition, but it is a totally different kind of book. There's not a single mention of a town council in my book.

This is a photo we didn't use for the
book cover. It's the front door to
 Cezanne'sstudio in Aix en Provence.

But there is an Ohio family that travels to southern France to run a bed and breakfast. Some of the chapters are told from the viewpoint of Uncle Martin. He grew up in Kentucky and traveled to Europe to fight in World War II when he was 17. When he got injured, he woke up to find a lovely French woman who would become his wife Lucie. He never moved home to Kentucky again, but he does have a secret from World War II that is catching up with him.
Hope you'll give my book a try.
I have two reviews on Kindle with four out of five stars.
RS says,  "An absorbing story, great characters and writing that sings to you. I couldn't put it down. I only wish I had discovered it on a summer vacation to read at the beach." You can read the whole review here. And sorry, RS, I know it should have been available for the summer since it's called The Summer of France. Why did it come out at the end of September? Okay, one mistake so far.
Another review by HG says, "...if you like realistic dialogue spoken by realistic characters, you will be drawn into the story without realizing it. The pace and tone feel like a "summer in France"; the twists and turns of the plot appear and then recede in a very natural way." You can read that whole review here.
Does this convince you to give my book a try? Only $4.99 to download on Amazon or Barnes and Noble. Or order the paperback version for $14, plus shipping here. It'll be available in paperback at Amazon eventually, but isn't yet.

Saturday Snapshot -- My Nose in a Book

To participate in the Saturday Snapshot meme post a photo that you (or a friend or family member) have taken then leave a direct link to your post on Alyce's blog At Home With Books. Photos can be old or new, and be of any subject as long as they are clean and appropriate for all eyes to see. How much detail you give in the caption is entirely up to you. Please don’t post random photos that you find online.

 

This week, I'm combining two old things: following  up on the picture from last week where I broke my nose 24 years ago and again last week, I had to have surgery to straighten it yesterday. The doctor convinced me it would be quick to fix while the bones were still broken.

So broken nose, plus -- my book published.

 

Yes, I'm hoping for some sympathy purchases... But it's also a fun book. Hope you'll give it a try.

Here's the premise:

 When Fia loses her job, she jumps at the chance to travel to France to run her great uncle's bed and breakfast, dragging along her husband and teenage twins. She figures the whole family can bond before the twins grow up too fast. But her dreams of family bonding time fade as Kasie joins a local swim team, riding off to practice on the back of a scooter each morning, hips tucked next to the 18-year-old French boy who teaches her to smoke brown cigarettes and drink red wine. West accompanies a pouty French teenager around the city, playing his guitar in the town squares to earn spending money.  And Fia's husband Grayson tours the countryside with a pretty French woman. Why the whirlwind of French welcome, Fia wonders after she comes hom froma day at the beach in Nice with the handsome Frenchman Christophe, only to find someone has ransacked the B&B.

Fia doesn't know that the house hides her uncle's World War II secret, which might just tear her family apart.

So, are you intrigued?

You can find the book on  Amazon for the Kindle, on Barnes and Noble for the Nook or in paperback. The eBook versions are $4.99 each. And if you don't have an eBook reader, you can download the Kindle reader for free on Amazon and read it on your computer. But if you prefer to have the book in your hand, the paperback is $14.

I can't wait to hear what you all think about it.